


Protective

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I did entirely too much research on the Gallifreyan judicial system, Looms (Doctor Who), Other, Season/Series 11, Sorry Not Sorry, Timeless Child reveal, and used approximately none of that knowledge, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:02:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29889825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: The Doctor wants to ignore the summons to Gallifrey, she really does. But when visiting home means a chance to see the Master... she can't resist.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	Protective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valc0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valc0/gifts).



> For Val, to celebrate one year of High and Dry! Technically inspired by a different piece of her art, but...

The Doctor is about three eighths of the way through recalibrating the spatial equalizers — after an incident with the microgravity in the blue kitchen had bumped it up to a priority — when the TARDIS chimes at her. It's a new, different sound; not the normal 'picked up a distress signal' beep, nor any of the wide variety of warbling noises that indicate emotion. Higher pitched, and more sustained, and _deeply_ annoying. She sighs, puts the length of translucent pink wiring back where it originally connected to — undoing her previous work — and shimmies her way out from underneath the console to look at the monitor.

From the moment she lays eyes upon the intricate rendering of the Seal of Rassilon on the screen, she knows what the message is going to be. It didn't matter that the last time she stepped foot on Gallifrey, she'd kicked the entire High Council off of the planet, or that she has about as much interest in putting up with the replacements as they do in putting up with her. There's a mess that needs cleaning up, and she's the one they want to play janitor.

"The High Council of Gallifrey calls upon you, oh Lord President, to preside over and consult in the trial of the Time Lord known as the Master, pertaining to a crime most heinous, committed within the Matrix and regarding the redacted status of potentially treasonous information, such that…" The sentence keeps going, but she doesn't.

If the Doctor had her way, she would never have to hear the Master's name again. She'd spent decades trying to reach a compromise with Missy so that the two of them could be friends again, decades of cautious overtures of companionship through books and take-out and duets, decades of patient education on morality and why it matters. And the moment Missy had the chance, she'd thrown it all away to go conquer the universe with her previous self. Just remembering it makes something sharp and furious grow in the Doctor's stomach; the thought of actually seeing the Master — whatever form they would take — is sickening.

"No," she says firmly, as though the missive before her can hear. "Not happening."

She deletes the message quickly and with prejudice, and lays back down on the floor to continue the recalibration. This time, she gets to a full six sevenths of the way before the same chime rings out through the room. Somehow, it's gotten even more grating than the first one. The Doctor doesn't even bother getting out from underneath the console, simply sending a thought to the TARDIS requesting that the ship send the new message to join its kin.

Frustrated, the Doctor keeps working on the recalibration. Her sonic screwdriver buzzes, helpfully checking the programming for bugs now that the hardware is repaired. But not even that is enough to keep her mind from wandering, now that thoughts of the Master are slipping back.

She hates them. It's an objective, inarguable, concrete truth of the universe. The Doctor hates the Master. Simple as that. Another truth: the Master is a lying, conniving, traitorous excuse for a friend, and she should have seen Missy's betrayal coming. A third, more painful, truth: hope and love can make someone very, very blind. One more truth: even though she's furious at them, it's not the High Council's right to enact justice for their crimes. Final truth: if anyone is going to sentence them to _anything,_ it should be her.

The Doctor huffs a sigh out through her nose, finishes debugging the equalizers, and stands up. The movement just so happens to correspond with another ringing, ear-piercing chime, and another copy of the same message. With a scowl, she keys the coordinates into the TARDIS.

She isn't sure if it's her sour mood or the difficulties inherent to slipping into Gallifrey's pocket dimension, but the TARDIS whines and rumbles more than usual during the flight. If the humans were on board… well, the Doctor wouldn't be doing this in the first place. The less they know about her past, the better. It's safer not to let them get close enough to truly know her.

They've only been travelling with her for a little while now, ever since the adventure with the spiders. She's been trying so hard to keep them entertained and happy, without letting anything deeper or more dangerous show. Better to keep this enjoyable for them, better to keep this _safe_ for them, than to be open and risk killing them.

The shudder that runs through the TARDIS as she lands on Gallifrey startles the Doctor out of that dismal train of thought. She'd keyed in coordinates for the TARDIS bay beneath the Panopticon, and a quick check on the monitor confirms that that's exactly where she is. The trial itself won't be held in the Panopticon — there are courts for that — but it's the best spot to park.

With a soft pat to the console and a promise to be back as soon as possible, the Doctor steps out onto the cold marble floor of the holding bay.

"Lord President." The address comes from a guard in formal robes, cold and official. "This way, if you will."

They were expecting her. Of course.

"Is the trial already happening?" she asks, following the guard as he leads the way out, into the winding halls.

"Not as yet," the guard replies. "The Council was waiting until your arrival. Your presence is necessary, Lord President."

The Doctor snorts. The only reason the Council wants her is so that she can testify against the Master, and so that any sentence they receive is legally airtight. No loopholes about insufficient authority to be exploited. If they really cared about having a Lord President that did the job, they would impeach her and find someone more agreeable. It wouldn't be the first time. No, whoever makes up the new Council are probably all too happy to have a President who's never present.

  
  


It's a surprisingly quick walk to the nearest shuttle, and from there, the court is just a few micro-spans away. The Doctor does her best to make conversation, but as the guard's responses are noncommittal and short, it's primarily one-sided. She's fine with that, though, and manages a rather impressive tangent on the formation of anti-gravity caving regulation laws on Pluto before the shuttle docks.

She's mildly surprised that no one foists uncomfortable ceremonial robes upon her, but deeply relieved. Perhaps they've finally learned that she won't put up with the ridiculous things if she has any choice in the matter and they don't want to risk her leaving to avoid them.

The guard leads her to the courtroom. Certainly, there must be differences between the various courts — small details, in the height of the chairs or the arrangement of the pillars dotting the space — but the Doctor hasn't the faintest clue what they actually are. As far as her memory serves, this one is just the same as all the others she's been in. Being the one to sit in one of the imposing thrones, towering over the floor like Mount Olympus, is an interesting change of pace, though.

She steps past the standing Council members, who all go through the motions of respect without any real meaning. The throne isn't particularly comfortable, but neither is the situation overall; leaning forward and propping her chin on her hands, her elbows leaning on her knees, mitigates the effect somewhat. At the very least, it makes the Council frown in a terribly amusing way, though none of them say anything.

"Your Lordship, if you would care to begin the trial," one particularly bold Time Lord says, "now would be quite ideal."

"Yeah, alright," the Doctor says, deliberately bright in a way she doesn't feel. "The trial of the Master shall now begin."

As if they'd been waiting for that cue — and, more than likely, they had been — two guards pull open the doors on the ground level, and two more drag in a figure that can only be the Master. The Doctor blinks; she'd been expecting Missy, but this must be a new regeneration. Still dark-haired and with a tendency towards purple, but aside from that, the similarities are slim. He's sporting a beard, though it's somewhat dishevelled, and he looks taller than Missy had been. What really catches her attention, however, is the fact that his gaze is fixed on the floor. No prideful tilt of his chin, no challenging eye contact, no smug grin mocking her very presence. Just a careful mask of neutrality. If she cared, the Doctor would almost be worried.

The same brave Council member takes over, beginning with a list of his crimes. For the most part, they're nothing new or exciting, so the Doctor focuses on the Master. She expects some sort of response out of him — laughter when the phrase "most blatantly treasonous child of this planet in its history" was spoken, perhaps — but he stays just as still and silent as when he'd been brought in, unresisting.

It's the last handful that catch her attention. 'Treasonous usage of the Matrix' isn't much of a surprise, but 'Unauthorized access to Gallifrey's historical archives' and 'Attainment of knowledge restricted by the Founders themselves' stand out. _Nothing_ that Rassilon or Omega chose to hide has ever been good, in the Doctor's experience. If he really _did_ find something… maybe it was for the best. Maybe he'd been trying to do something good.

She shakes her head minutely, trying to derail that train of thought. If Missy wanted to be good — and surely this Master must be after Missy, otherwise the Doctor wouldn't have been summoned from this point in her timeline — then she had had her chance, and she chose to waste it. Nothing _good_ could come of that.

And yet, the Doctor can't reconcile the proud Time Lady who had turned her back on their friendship with the quiet, almost _placid_ Time Lord she now stares down at. _Something_ happened between Missy leaving and now, something that forced a regeneration, and the Doctor wants to know what.

The Time Lord listing off the Master's many and varied crimes finally pauses to breathe, and she takes the opportunity to stand and say, "Know what? I think it's time we take a quick recess. I need to talk to him."

There's some spluttering and attempts at protesting from the Council, but she ignores all that in favor of standing, marching down the stairs to the ground level of the courtroom, and gesturing for the guards to bring the Master with her as she pushes the doors open and leaves. She doesn't even look to see if the guards follow, but she hears their footsteps as they do, scrambling to keep up with her pace.

The courts have holding cells attached, but the Doctor is just looking for an empty room. In the state he's in, the Master doesn't seem likely to try anything — though it could, of course, be an act. That's a chance she's willing to take, for now. Eventually, she manages to find a waiting room, and steps inside.

"Wait out here," she tells the guards.

One, in the gold helmet of a sergeant, frowns slightly. "Your Lordship, is it wise to be alone with such a dangerous criminal?"

She almost laughs. As if they don't both have blood on their hands in such large quantities that they might as well be equal.

"I'll be fine," she says instead, and the guards don't protest any further before nudging the Master into the room.

The moment the door closes, the Master straightens and looks her in the eyes. Where his expression had been blank and calm before, there's so much anger and _more_ that it makes the Doctor stop in her tracks.

"Why are you here?" he says, soft despite the rage plain on his face.

"To make sure you get what you deserve," she replies. It's the truth, or close enough that she can pretend. "Whatever you found, I want to know what it is."

The Master laughs. "You really don't, Doctor. Go back to playing renegade hero and leave."

There's a twist of bitterness when he says that, a sneer and an underlying current of _something._ If only she knew what.

"Tell me, and maybe I can help you get out of this," she offers.

"Like you have any real authority here," he snaps. "You're a figurehead and you know it. Just _go."_

His voice cracks slightly on the last word, and oh, _how_ did she miss the tears starting to well up in those soft brown eyes?

"Master-" she starts, but stops when he gasps slightly, hands twitching at his side in the paralysis cuffs; they allow arm movement, but nothing below the wrist. He turns away from her.

Her hearts are torn. The part of her that still cares, despite _everything,_ wants to comfort him; the part that's furious at him for leaving her wants to hurt him worse; the part that's just overwhelmingly curious wants to know what caused this.

In the end, her curiosity wins out first.

"Tell me what happened," she repeats, softer. "Please."

The Master looks back at her, and he looks _devastated._ His eyes are shiny with tears just barely unshed, and from the slight movements of his hands, he's trying to wipe them away.

The first brush of his mind against hers comes as a complete shock, and she pushes him away on sheer reflex.

"It's easier to show you," he says. His voice is remarkably steady.

"Right."

This time, she's ready for it. The Master doesn't press deeper, instead urging her to follow him back into his own mind. Cautiously, the Doctor does.

From him, always so talented with telepathy, she expected an elegantly constructed mindscape to greet her. Instead, there's only a loose idea of a room, the walls a color that falls somewhere just shy of grey and more of a suggestion than anything with true force behind them. She seems to be hovering in midair.

Across from her floats the Master's own constructed form. It looks much the same as he does in the physical world, though his beard is trimmed and neat, and his clothing is no longer rumpled. He's standing, looking at her with the same deliberate neutrality as he'd had in the courtroom.

"Did you ever wonder where the ability to regenerate came from?" he asks.

It's obviously meant to be a rhetorical question, but the Doctor says, "Rassilon, probably," anyway.

The Master looks unamused. "No. Let me show you what I found while digging around the Matrix."

Slowly, the room takes on color. A floor appears, made of rough dirt, and an empty indigo sky unfolds above them. Two massive pillars build themselves upward, a roiling mass of purple light igniting between them. At the base of the pillars, standing on a platform of warm yellow stone, is a humanoid child. They're _young,_ young enough that the dark skin of their face is still rounded out with baby fat and the golden robes they wear seem too big.

"What is this?" the Doctor demands.

The Master shakes his head. "Wait."

After a moment — or it could be two, or three, or hundreds of years, with how strangely Time flows in memories of memories — there's a rumble of jets as a spaceship lands on the red dirt. A woman, grey-haired and dressed in mismatched, patchy clothing, steps out. Slowly, she approaches the child.

The memory jumps forward, to the child sitting inside the woman's ship, smiling and laughing. Then it jumps again, and now the child is lying back on a chair in a laboratory that looks so horribly familiar that the Doctor shivers. The woman takes a blood sample, then presses a soft kiss to the child's forehead.

Another jump forward. The child stands on a rocky cliff, 'flying' a toy spaceship around through the air. Another child — roughly the same age — grabs for the toy, and pushes the first backwards ever so slightly. Unbalanced, they tumble off the edge of the cliff.

"Why are you showing me this?"

_"Wait."_

The memory jumps once more, and shows the child lying in the sand beneath the cliff. Their arms and legs are bent at unnatural angles — the Doctor's own twinge in sympathy — and their breath seems shallow. Their adoptive mother comes running.

Slowly, ever so slowly, an aura of gold begins to coalesce around the child. Then, all at once, they erupt into burning light.

"Master, _what is this?"_

Children can't regenerate. It's not possible. None of this makes sense.

"Just watch, Doctor."

The light fades, and there lies another child. Roughly the same age, but with paler skin and almond eyes that are wide as they stare up at the woman.

Another jump in the memory has them back in the same lab, the child in the chair once more. The woman takes more samples, the child looks at her with unbearable trust, and-

Another jump. The child must have regenerated again, and they're older. More samples, more tests, more-

Another jump. Another regeneration. The woman's expression is firm and almost obsessive as she takes more blood and then injects-

Another jump. Another regeneration. The child is nearly an adult, and they've lost any trust in their eyes they may have ever had. Their arms and legs are held to the chair with straps.

Another jump. The woman is in the chair, now, with a syringe of a golden, glowing liquid. Carefully, she inserts it into her arm and presses the plunger down. Her face twists in agony, and then the golden light explodes outward. A moment later, a young man with dark skin and close-cropped hair is in her place, grinning with triumph.

Another jump. The child — for that's who it _must_ be, with the way their shoulders slump inward and their head hangs deferentially — is led away down a hall by a pair of guards, and the young man who was once their mother watches.

The memory fades back into the pliable vagueness of the Master's mind.

_"What was that?"_ the Doctor demands. "Why did you show me that? Who was that child?"

"The woman's name was Tecteun," he says, still infuriatingly neutral. "She was the first to discover the secret of regeneration. The first in this universe, at least. Her child… her child was eventually re-Loomed."

"Into _whom?"_ She steps closer, until she's nearly touching the Master. "Who was it that she tortured to build our society, and why do you _care?"_

After she asks that, the answer seems obvious. There's only one person it _could_ be.

"It was you," she breaths, and at the same moment, the Master says, "It was _you."_

"What?" The Doctor blinks. "No, you-"

The mindscape shifts to another memory, now of two men — one is Rassilon, by the collar and the robes, and the other must be Tecteun, though regenerated again — standing in an office.

"Are you certain that House Lungbarrow is suited to the task?" Rassilon asks. "You said yourself that you have no way of knowing how the Loom will handle the process. The biodata is… rather alien."

Tecteun waves a hand dismissively. "What does it matter? If it's a failure, we can simply place the biodata back in cold storage. It's survived this long. But don't you want to know if it _will_ work?"

With a considering hum, Rassilon nods. "Very well. I will arrange for it to be done."

The memory fades out again.

"It could be anyone in Lungbarrow!" the Doctor protests. "It's not- it _can't_ be me. I know my own life, I know my own childhood and-"

"But you _don't."_ The Master steps closer, and she backs away, trying to keep distance between them now. "You don't remember any of it, but what I showed you about the child looked familiar, didn't it? What regeneration are you even on, Doctor?"

"I… my fifteenth body," she admits. "But they gave me more regenerations, Clara _made_ them!"

Sharp, cruel laughter rings through the mindscape, echoing off of nothing. "Why would they bother with that? You've been nothing but a nuisance to them from the start. Nothing but a _tool_ to be used when they need you."

"Oh, and that makes you better than me, does it?" she snarls. "All that about not wanting to show me was just a lie to make me curious, so you could make me see how much _less_ I really am — if you're even telling the truth. Well, _congratulations._ I guess you do deserve whatever sentence they serve you. I should have known better than to trust you again."

Anger and betrayal and grief are tangled up in her chest, fighting for dominance and leaving her hearts as collateral damage. She prepares to step back out of the Master's mind when a hand lands on her wrist.

Whirling around to look at him, the Doctor prepares herself for a smirk, or gloating delight. Instead, there's only more of that aching _something_ that seems to be a permanent fixture of the Master's eyes now, painful and deep.

"Do you think I'd be so angry if I thought you deserved that?" he says, voice on the edge of breaking. "I _hate them,_ Doctor, for what they did to you. I want to burn this whole place to the ground. But I deserve it more than any of them."

That gives her pause. "What do you mean?"

He laughs again, but it's a fractured and bitter thing. "I've tried so many times to steal your regeneration energy, or to kill you. The life I have is already built off of your suffering, and I was a fool to think I deserved anything more."

With her free hand, the Doctor reaches for the Master's shoulder — whether to pull him close or shove him away, she isn't quite sure. She just needs to do _something,_ because the broken mess of a Time Lord whose mind she's in reminds her so painfully of Missy at her most genuine, and she doesn't know what to do.

She doesn't get the chance to decide.

One moment, she's in the Master's mind, and the next, she's being _pulled_ back into her own, forced out of his thoughts far more crudely than he ever would do to her. It takes a moment — too long — to reorient herself to her physical body, and by that point, it's too late. Two guards are dragging the Master away, and another two have her in their grasp.

"Let me go!" she orders.

"Your Lordship, it's time to resume the trial," one says, ignoring her desperate efforts to wriggle loose of the _too close too much_ touch.

She thrashes and shouts the rest of the way to the courtroom, to no avail. The guards merely shove her in front of them — and when she refuses to move, they drag her behind them instead. She would think it was a coup, if she believed that she had any sort of power to overthrow in the first place. This is just run of the mill corruption and the hatred the Council harbors for her.

As the doors of the courtroom close with a very final _thud,_ the Doctor looks up to see the chair she'd been seated in taken by that one bold Council member. It's so predictable a betrayal that she doesn't even have the energy to act surprised. She should have seen it coming from the start, but the thought of seeing the Master again had distracted her.

And speaking of… the Doctor looks away from the Council towering above her to the Master. He's standing in the center of the room, the mask of neutrality slipping at the edges. His eyes still have the slightest traces of tears, and his hands are shaking in the cuffs.

"Doctor, you stand alongside the accused as an accomplice to his treason," the Councilman says. "He has already pleaded guilty. How do you plead?"

She ignores him, crossing the room to stand near the Master. There isn't even time for her to reach out for him before he _crumbles._ The guards rush forward, but the Doctor catches him first. He grabs onto her, clutching at her shoulders and leaning his whole weight against her so suddenly that her only real choice is to sink to the ground.

It's not particularly elegant, their descent, but it's better than falling backwards entirely. The Doctor ends up with her legs out in front of her, the Master practically sprawling in front of her as he gives up on holding onto her shoulders and his arms encircle her midsection instead. It _should_ be making her skin crawl — nearly everyone else's touch does — and maybe it's their recent telepathic connection or just who he is, but it just feels… desperate. Like she's his last lifeline in the stormy sea of self-hatred and rage that he's lost himself in, and he is trying so very hard not to drown.

Gently, she wraps her arms around him, pulling his head closer to her chest. The skin contact is enough for her to slip back into his mind, though she's still careful. It could be a trap, even after all that he showed her.

But the anguish she finds the moment she starts looking is most certainly real; guilt and pain and an overwhelming wave of despair, deep enough to suffocate anything else. He truly believes what he said, that he deserves the death he wishes upon the Time Lords more than any of them.

"Oh, Koschei," the Doctor breathes. "What did you do to yourself?"

Distantly, she hears the Councilman saying something — probably an order for her attention, not that she's going to give it. It does serve as a timely reminder that there are more pressing matters than the Master's current emotional state, however. The Doctor presses the rough idea of her quickly-forming plan into his mind.

The disbelieving noise he makes is a welcome change from the unnatural silence before, even if it makes the Doctor bristle slightly. She can feel him push down the despair, if only superficially, enough to force some composure and sarcasm to the forefront of his thoughts.

"It'll never work," the Master points out. "They'll know you're bluffing."

"It's a perfectly good plan!" she retorts. "And they don't know me like the old Council did. Have you seen most of them? The oldest probably graduated decades after us. They grew up on stories of those dastardly renegades going around breaking Time, and of us in particular. I think they'd believe just about anything."

Even with his head still buried in her chest, probably still teary-eyed, she can imagine his disbelievingly raised eyebrow. She can also feel the bright edges of hope taking shape in his mind, despite everything. This is familiar, the bickering and the plotting and the comradery, and she can't help falling prey to the warm glow it stokes in her chest either.

"Do you want me to let you out or not?" the Doctor asks. They both know full well that she'll do it anyways — she won't leave him, not when she has so many questions still unanswered.

His shoulders heave beneath her touch in a dramatic sigh. "If we get thrown in an even more secure jail than the one I was in before this, I'm blaming you."

With that, she retreats fully from his mind, unwinding one arm from where it rested around his neck to reach into her pocket. As she does, she looks at the Councilman now heading the trial.

"You know," she remarks lightly, "I think I'll plead not guilty for both of us, seeing as this whole thing is a farce anyhow. Farce, blatant power grab, remarkably _stupid_ idea… take your pick."

The Councilman sneers. "Will you still think it a _farce_ when you are impeached for treason and imprisoned in the depths of Shada?"

She tilts her head, as if considering her answer, while discreetly sonicing the locks of the Master's cuffs. When they _snick_ open, she finally replies. "Yup!"

The handful of seconds that follow that are a bit of a blur. The Master stands and lunges for the nearest guard's staser, wrenching it out of her hands easily, and the Doctor catches it when he tosses it her way. He takes a second one for himself and steps smoothly behind her, covering her back while she looks the Council dead on.

"I really would _hate_ to kill you," she says. "So why don't you just let us go? I'll even throw in my resignation from the Presidency."

"You wouldn't dare-"

A _zip_ from the Doctor's staser cuts the end of the Councilman's protest short, and smoke billows from the hole that just appeared in his collar. It's level with his eyeline and so close to having hit him instead that he has to blink to avoid smoke getting in his eyes.

The Doctor bares her teeth in a grin. "Been a while since I used one of these. Next time I might not miss. The Master definitely won't."

For a moment, the Council is completely silent above the pair of renegades. Then, voice deliberately not trembling, the Councilman says, "Very well. Your resignation is accepted, and your crimes absolved. You may leave."

"Much appreciated," the Master says, and his cheer almost sounds sincere. "We're keeping the stasers, though."

  
  


The Doctor feels strange, stepping into the TARDIS with the Master by her side. It's reminiscent of what she had had with Missy, before it all went wrong. That's something they'll need to talk about before they go their separate ways — and they _certainly_ will, eventually; she doesn't want to even try to hope otherwise.

But that will have to wait, because the moment they're off of Gallifrey, the Master's façade of control and calmness fractures, and he sinks onto the steps at the back of the console room with a heavy exhale and new tears in his eyes.

Cautiously, not sure how he'll react, the Doctor joins him. She anticipates a comment on that, or perhaps a request to be dropped off as soon as possible. What she _doesn't_ anticipate is for him to lean over so far that his head ends up in her lap, sigh deeply, and rearrange himself so that he can better lay across her.

It's impossible _not_ to card her fingers through his hair like this, even just as an idle way of keeping her hands busy, so the Doctor gives in to the impulse quickly. The Master doesn't seem to mind, from the way his eyelids flutter shut and his hearts slow.

"We need to…" he starts, then trails off. Whether the sentence was meant to end with 'talk' or some other verb, he's probably right.

"Later," she promises. "Just rest, Master."

She sits there for quite some time, toying with his hair with one hand and resting the other behind her, trying not to let the thoughts about what she now knows rush in to fill the emptiness the silence has left in her mind. The next time she looks down, his face is soft and peaceful with sleep. For the moment, that's enough.


End file.
